From a celebrity blogger to content-to-commerce entrepreneur: MissMalini's Malini Agarwal has come a long way

Perhaps one of the country's first few digital influencers, former radio jockey and the founder of the digital media firm, Agarwal spoke to Moneycontrol on how the life of a digital influencer has changed in the last one decade, how she decided to get into this industry, the reason behind consolidating the brand and plans going forward.

Edited excerpts:

Q: It's been 12 years since you started MissMalini. Now with the GoodGlamm you will be able to further expand MissMalini's horizon. But before talking about the deal, tell us how did a girl from a small city like Prayagraj get into such a dreamy lifecycle?

A: Yeah, at that time, it was known as Allahabad and my father was a diplomat. He got to Somalia, then Lebanon, then Greece and Germany, then Bulgaria and Ivory Coast. We lived all over the world. I actually got to live a very fancy life before I earned it myself. But I really have to credit the experience of travelling the world, the education in American schools (to where I am today). While maybe academically, international American schools are not as strong as Indian schools, they really teach you to have your own opinion, not to be afraid to speak up. So I really feel like I flourished there, I really got to do arts and theatre and all of that.

The funny thing is that when I was in the 11th grade, and I was very excited that I'm going to go and study in the American University of Paris, my father got posted to Bulgaria, and there was no high school for me.

We had to relocate to India, me and my mum. I went to the British School, did my A levels in English and history. Then obviously, I wanted to do college. I got into Maitreyi College but I wasn't sure what it would be like to suddenly go to an all-girls college. It can be very intimidating. I have an accent. So people make a lot of assumptions about me.

In college I studied English literature, which was pretty much what I did in my A levels. So I really got into dancing, and theatre. And then I got picked to be a professional dancer. I was a backup dancer for six years. And it was really fun. I loved that life. I got to travel again all across the world, but this time on my own merits. As a backup dancer, I only got maybe Rs 2,000 a show. But that was a lot back in 1998. And I loved it, and I danced behind all the indie-pop stars. I remember once we danced behind the Spice Girls and Peter Andre, who was our Justin Bieber at the time.

I was in a bubble growing up because I didn't realise that I had all these luxuries. At home, my mom tried to keep it real. But when you have that luxury or going to school in a Mercedes, you don't really have the kind of value for money that you do now, you know. And then when my father retired, I remember going into the three-bedroom house in Mayur Vihar and saying, Oh, what a cute apartment. Where's the rest of it? My mom was like, sit down. This is it.

Q. How did Bombay and then the radio happen?

A: I was 20. And I was having an argument with my mother. So I said, I'm running away from home. And I got as far as the Maurya Sheraton in Delhi before I realised that I didn't really have a plan and eventually went back home. I told my mother I just wanted to do something with my life. I wanted to live an extraordinary life. I didn't think I'm going to do it while living in Mayur Vihar. So she said okay. It was the year 2000. I had Rs 40,000 saved in my bank account. I thought that's a lot of money to come to Bombay. My first rent was Rs 625 because I was sharing a room with multiple girls. And I remember being super traumatised because somehow at night, this pigeon got into the window, and it would fly around. And I would be under this bedsheet mortified that it's going to hit the ceiling fan and there's going to be blood everywhere. I remember thinking that I can't live like this.

Q. How did the digital content look like then?

A: Back in 2003, everybody had a website. So MTV India, Channel V, but nobody knew what to do with it. It was just all the extra footage now that would go up. Around the same time I got a job interview with this company called Asia Content. Anil Nair who then became my boss said we need someone who could handle the romance and sexuality section on the MTV website.

And I was like, somebody is gonna pay me to write about love. That's amazing.

While I was working there private radio started. I went and auditioned to become an RJ. Then MidDay asked me to write page three columns. And ironically, it was called Malini's Mumbai. If I look back it's the first iteration of the blog, which became Miss Malini many years later. And that was my first foray into the celebrity world where I got invited to events and see the celebrities around.

Q. What was the idea behind setting up MissMalini?

A: It was 2008. I remember complaining to a friend on vacation in Dubai, that I write so many nice things about music and literature, and they just cut it down and say, this person came with this person and left with this.

He said, why don't you start a blog? I did not know what a blog was. He told me it was this online diary. I didn't even know who read it. My friend was like don't worry about it. And I remember May 5, 2008, he sent me a log into WordPress. And I wrote my first blog.

I did radio for nine years. I remember playing Wo Chali (Bombay Vikings) putting the faders down and thinking I'm never going to be this happy in my career ever again. This was my favourite job. I always say radios, my first love blogging my marriage. But somehow, I started doing this blog, and I remember being at the ghetto once and somebody asked me, what do you do? Normally, I would say I'm an RJ. And they'd be like, Oh, RJ Malini, we love you. But I said, I write blogs. They said, what's it called? I said, MissMalini. And they said, Oh, my God, we read it. This was in 2010.

Q. You took the plunge from the radio to the digital world?

A: I'm really a believer in having multiple jobs. By that time I had switched to Channel V as their digital content head. I would do my jobs all day, and I would come home and blog from midnight to 4 am. Being a Marwari, I was like, I can't give up my day job. I can't give up my paycheck. At that time, Noushad, now my husband and the CEO of the company, was in business school. He was at Harvard Business School. And he came back and he had a great job. He said if you want to try it, why don't you try it? I'm making enough money, I can support us for the year. And if it works, it works. Otherwise, you can always go back to doing what you want.

So I did that. And he worked at Nomura and Mike Valley, who's my business partner, we both started the blog officially on my sofa. And then after a couple of years, Noushad got tired of being an investment banker, and he quit and joined us too. And it's kind of been no looking back since then.

Q. How was it starting in an industry that had no precedent?

We were building a new industry but we would never say that now we have the blog so we have to make this much revenue. It was never about that. It was about what kind of content can we create? What's unique about it? The struggle I had in between, for a while, was that I'm not a Bollywood Celebrity. I am not a comedian, because a lot of the content was comics. I was like where do I fit? And then I realised that it's okay if something doesn't already exist, if you feel that need. And I think that's what really helped me.

Q. How did it evolve from a blogging site to all these multiple businesses you have now?

A: So we've been adding them over the years. It made so much sense for us to create an agent and creative which is our
in-house ad agency, because brands are coming to us anyway, for content. We're like, hey, we can also make your ad film. Then we added in studios because a lot of channels TLC will come to us and say hey, why don't you create a reality show about bloggers. Early on television channels the kind of content people were consuming was reality. So we started MM studios for that. Then we started Girl Tribe, a community which is a place of positivity or support where you can earn points to actually redeem them against products. And then we launched Ignite Edge which is our in-house influencer marketing, because it makes so much sense.

Q. But why an acquisition now, especially when things are going so well for content creators and the influencer economy. Did you have other offers as well?

A: I've seen the whole evolution of it. We have banged on doors, tried to explain to brands, what is digital media, what is digital content, and nobody has understood for years. And I'm very proud of the fact that we did kind of break some of those glass ceilings and carve the path there. Over the years, I've realised the best way to scale is to consolidate whether you are, you know, picking up brands under your banner, or you're collaborating or getting a strategic partner.

For us over the years, many times people have come and offered to buy the company, but it didn't feel right. I was not going to be able to build it out the way I want to. I still always want to be MissMalini. I still always want to create content under this banner.

So one of the really exciting things is that MissMalini continues as it is. I really love that the GoodGlamm group also has all these other brands under them, that fits so well with us. Right now my content sits on the MissMalini platform. Tomorrow, when I do any content whether it's branded or non branded, I can distribute it across platforms. So with ScoopWhoop, BabyChakra, MomsCo the reach is so much better.

Also time and time again, the beauty standards in India are and can be traumatising. You have to be a certain height, looking a certain way. And you know, Bollywood and Instagram do contribute to that a lot.

I want to be a part of something that can help change that narrative. At the age of 44, I want my life to mean more than entertainment content as much as I love it. And I think being part of a group like this will allow us to change the narrative because it is also content to commerce. We can decide what is the messaging of the products that the group also makes.

Q. Will all your digital assets continue to exist separately? How will they work?

A: So Miss Malini will continue to function absolutely as it is. What we're going to add on is the capability to actually sell branded content across the group.

Q. What will be your lock-in period post the acquisition?

A: So I can't share the details of the contract. But I can tell you this, having built something like this in my life, I don't think I would want to do anything else. In fact I would love to do more things like I have not been writing blogs for such a long time. I'm working on my second book. We're also working on exciting projects right now that will come out in the influencer space.